Search

About

Persist or not? – The 200 words project

We are told that persistence is a great trait to have. But, at what point does persistence become stupidity?

Before entrepreneur and musician Derek Sivers started CDBaby.com, he spent two years promoting various projects. The projects always felt uphill and progress came with massive effort.

When he started CDBaby.com, the first internet store for independent musicians to sell their songs, it felt like a hit song. People loved it and, suddenly, all previously locked doors opened. Based on his experiences, Derek cautions us against the idea that success comes from being persistent. Instead, he insists it comes from persistently improving on an idea that customers love.

Derek’s advice is aligned to the advice on building a “minimum viable product.” As the image below shows, the way to build an MVP is to keep attacking the customer problem with lower effort approaches and, then, iterating to build a sophisticated solution

Present each new idea or improvement to the world. If multiple people are saying, “Wow! Yes! I need this! I’d be happy to pay you to do this!” then you should probably do it. But if the response is anything less, don’t pursue it. – Derek Sivers